Patch Blog: No Child Should Be Invisible

Caroline Kavich, a junior, has always enjoyed philanthropic work. Last year when she was approached by a senior to get involved with the organization, Invisible Children, she readily accepted the challenge.

With a friendly smile and sparkle in her eyes, I met Kavich last Friday night while she and ten other La Canada High School students were transforming the into a festive dance pavilion. This is her third fundraiser for the month of October. She and a group of 11th grade friends had a bake sale and car wash to raise support, awareness and money for the worthy nonprofit organization.

Kavich started an Invisible Children club at La Canada High School, after being inspired last summer while attending an Invisible Children’s Fourth Estate three-day conference at the University of San Diego. With 600 of the organization’s strongest supporters, this group of dynamic individuals from all over the country, agreed to raise $2 million dollars by December 14, 2011.

Kavich has raised over $3500 and is in the top 10 of the Fourth Estate money raisers. The top 16 donors will earn a trip to Uganda to meet the people associated with Invisible Children, see the schools that are being rebuilt and experience a life changing adventure.

Those who think they can change the world are the ones who do. Kavich is one of those individuals.

What is Invisible Children?  It’s a grassroots movement to help the plight of the children in Northern Uganda. In 2003, three young men took a trip to Africa and filmed their adventure. Little did they know it would change their future forever.

They witnessed the injustice of innocent people who have suffered in the longest running war in Africa. A war that has destroyed villages, families and schools. One night they met thousands of night commuters, children who walk miles at night to avoid being abducted by the militant rebel leader, Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). His fanatical group kidnaps boys, puts guns in their hands and teaches them to kill. They take young girls and force them to become sex slaves.

The three travelers met a boy who had been abducted from the LRA and listened to his story. Afterwards, they realized that his story had to be told for the war in Uganda to finally stop. They came back to the United States and showed their film, Rough Cut, to everyone who would watch it. Instead of focusing on corporate donations, they started the School for Schools initiative, urging young people in schools to raise small donations through creative fundraising events. School age children, teens and young adults raised $3 million dollars in one year to help rebuild schools in Uganda.

They started a job program in Uganda, where people from displaced villages learn how to make bracelets, package them and sell them with a photo and story about a child in Africa. Lastly, these three young men formed a peace proposal by insisting that the leaders in Washington, D.C. get involved and protect the Uganda people.

President Obama announced last Friday that he is deploying 100 troops to Uganda to monitor the LRA’s involvement abducting children in the country. In an ABC interview, Obama stated, “The Lord’s Resistance Army and their leader, Mr. Kony, are some of the most vicious killers. They terrorize villages, they take children into custody and turn them into soldiers, they engage in rape and slaughter in villages. They have been a scourge on Uganda and that entire region, Eastern Africa.”

Kavich and about 150 other Invisible Children supporters, posted pictures of themselves on Facebook, dressed in their Invisible Children t-shirts, holding up handmade signs supporting President Obama for his actions.

This social, political and global movement was created to make sure no child in our world is invisible. Let’s support our local girl, Caroline Kavich, achieve her goal to make a difference in lives of children and their families in Africa. Lend your support by visiting her website www.stayclassy.org/fundraise/ic?feid=120755.